Now joining the ranks are five former stars of the popular reality show “Survivor.” Survivor is an endurance reality show in which participants live in difficult conditions to try and win a prize.  The five are Toby Archa, Kimberly Mullen and Janu Tornell of “Survivor: Palau,” Michael Skupin of “Survivor: Australian Outback” and Scout Cloud Lee of “Survivor: Vanuatu.”

They had this to say about their efforts:

“While we are known to the world as ‘Survivors,’ that concept pales in comparison to the survivors in Darfur.”

The fasters also have a blog that they use to write about their experiences.  Their efforts have been covered by the Detroit Free Press, Philadelphia Online, The Insider and Courant News, among other sources.

On June 25, forty-two of Africa’s most prominent civic leaders and justice experts (with a few Nobel laureates—Desmond Tutu, Wangari Maathai, and Wole Soyinka) signed a joint statement that calls on the International Criminal Court to fulfill its duty of bringing justice to Darfur. This comes shortly after the ICC allowed chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to appeal the decision of dropping charges of genocide against Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir. It also comes shortly before the African Union’s summit in Libya on Wednesday.

In the letter, the signatories state that they are “concerned by the ongoing violence, displacement and repression in Sudan.” They viewed the need for adequate humanitarian assistance and for the ICC to bring Bashir to justice.

The emphasis for their support of the ICC is largely because several African nations are looking to put on the agenda an initiative to undermine the international court at this week’s summit, according to a New York Times op-ed piece by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan states in this article that some African leaders are troubled by the fact that the ICC has only charged Africans. However, he feels that a greater focus should be placed on the African victims, not the African leader whose presidency is in question.

Photo by World Economic Forum

So what does this mean for people of faith? The recently re-sparked question of whether the or not the atrocities in Darfur constitute genocide has put the spotlight on semantics. But what about the victims? What about justice?

Whether or not Bashir has committed “genocide” is irrelevant. He has been very much complicit in and behind the slaughter and displacement—along with a plethora of other horrors—of millions. Regardless if the “g” word is used to describe it, it is morally repugnant.

In this situation, what does God command of us? Micah 6:8 comes to mind. “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”. As Annan and the signatories of the joint statement mentioned above have indicated, the ICC’s role in bringing justice to Bashir is pivotal. By this act of justice, the man who expelled foreign aid agencies—the bringers of mercy to about 4.7 million Darfuris, inside and out of IDP camps—is out of power. It is only by doing the first of these two commandments that the third is achievable. By seeking to do justice and love mercy, we may walk humbly with our God.

Sudanese Refugees

(photo courtesy of Radu Sigheti)

There are a reported 2 million internally displaced persons in Darfur, Sudan and thousands of people have found refuge in Chad and other neighboring African nations. During the forum the high commissioner also mentioned several other noticeable trends in refugee displacement including the significant decrease in refugees since 2007, however as conflicts develop and become more intense those numbers can rise.

Click here to listen to her account of the attack.

She concludes, “We are hoping that the international community will help protect us by telling President al-Bashir that this violence against young women is wrong; it’s against both the law and our religion. He should stop this and allow us to continue our education.”

Wejdan Adam, left, and her husband Motasim Adam, with their daughter, Wesal, a four-year-old Darfuri girl who has lived most of her life without her parents in Sudan; she arrived in the U.S. last Monday, reunited through the help of HIAS, the international migration agency of the American Jewish community.

Wejdan greets Wesal upon her arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport. All pictures by Josh Strauss.

The Talmud instructs us that To Save One Life is to Save the Entire World. At HIAS, the international migration agency of the American Jewish community, we witnessed a powerful example of this eternal Jewish teaching last week when a year-long HIAS advocacy campaign to reunite a four-year-old Darfuri girl with her parents came to a joyful conclusion. This young child, Wesal Adam, was separated from her mother and father for much of her life because of a tragic gap in U.S. law.

A connection made through the HIAS Young Leaders educational activities on Darfuri refugees brought to light a profound miscarriage of justice in our current immigration law, and began HIAS’ intense involvement with the family of Motasim, Wejdan, and Wesal Adam. This work, along with our trauma counseling and social service programs for Darfuri refugees in Chad, is part of HIAS’ global effort to help repair the world and our contribution to the Jewish community’s priority campaign to Save Darfur.

Motasim Adam, a Darfuri political activist, was granted asylum in 2002 and later returned to Chad to visit his wife Wejdan who was living in a refugee camp. Arrangements to reunite the family faltered when the Department of Homeland Security ruled that Wejdan could join her husband but that Wesal, who had not been conceived at the time her father received asylum, was barred by law from accompanying her mother to the United States.

Because of the grave dangers facing women in Darfur, where Wejdan ultimately had returned, the family made the gut-wrenching decision to proceed with her immigration and leave Wesal with family friends in a Darfuri Internally Displaced Persons Camp. They believed that this would only be a brief separation.

A HIAS Young Leaders volunteer - who is an attorney at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman - took on this case pro-bono with his firm, representing Motasim Adam in his quest to free his daughter. The attorney, who got to know Mr. Adam when seeking to do outreach to the local Darfuri community with the HIAS Young Leaders group, learned of the appeals, delays, and lack of movement from the Department of Homeland Security and began to assist the Adams. After researching the gap in the law, the attorneys determined that lobbying for the girl’s entry would provide the most expedient solution and approached HIAS for assistance. Working together, HIAS and the Kasowitz, Benson attorneys advocated tirelessly to the government to grant humanitarian parole to Wesal and allow her to join her parents. Through this advocacy, HIAS learned that government officials shared our distress but believed that their hands were tied by the legal requirements. Notwithstanding this, on May 12th HIAS finally received word that DHS had agreed to grant humanitarian parole and that little Wesal would be allowed to come to the United States.

Last Monday, HIAS joined in a tearful reunion at JFK Airport where Wesal was reunited with her mother after more than two years apart. For us, this happy occasion brought back memories of the countless reunions we had witnessed of Soviet Jews joining family in the United States after years in refusal. The following NY Times story, along with video footage of the reunion, depict some of the emotion of this event.

While HIAS struggled to assist the Adam family, we also have highlighted Wesal Adam’s plight as exhibit number one on why the law must be changed. I’m pleased to report that a legislative fix recently passed the House of Representatives and HIAS is working with the Senate so that no more children are forced to suffer the separation from their parents that Wesal experienced.

(NY Times — 6/16/09) – Growing up among strangers in a refugee camp in the Darfur region of Sudan, 4-year-old Wesal Adam knew her parents mostly as faces in photographs and voices on the phone.

She knew that her father, Motasim Adam, and her mother, Wejdan Adam, lived in Brooklyn and that Mr. Adam drove a cab. But she did not know what they felt like or smelled like or how much they loved her — if at all … Read More

www.refugeedaylive.org

World Refugee Day is a time to honor the survivors who have been forced from their homes by violence. It is also a day to take action to support their wish for peace. Take action today for the people of Darfur!

Today I find myself once again fasting for Darfur. My first fast for Darfur, which I did only a few days after being arrested with Representative John Lewis, four other members of Congress, and leaders of Darfur advocacy groups, was undertaken to underline the urgency of the suffering in the internally displaced persons camps in Darfur after President Bashir had expelled over a dozen aid groups from the region.

Rabbis from around the world will join him on his last day.  Read the entire post over at the Religous Action Center Blog.

Update:  Rabbi Saperstein reports that over 70 Rabbis from around the world will be joining him tonight on his fast.  He also just met with General Gration, Special Envoy to Sudan, who has stated that the efforts of outside groups, the U.S. and the International Community has helped restore aid to the levels that they were before the 13 aid groups were expelled.  Rabbi Saperstein’s blog can be read here.

The state of the worlds peace is measured by a country to country basis and in various ways, including varying states of:

Social and Political Peace (i.e. degree of non-violent conflict, Militarization, Organized conflict, Number of displaced people, Number of external and internal conflicts, Respect for human rights, Social unrest (i.e. violent protest), Political instability, Number of deaths due to conflict, Potential for terrorist attacks.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) was started in 2007 by Clyde McConaghy and Steve Killelea. Each year since then they have gathered a panel of Peace and International Relations specialists together to study and speak about the state of the Global Peace Index (GPI) and what that means for the world. This year at the 2009 GPI the hot topic was the economy and how that has effected the state of the worlds peace. Below is the world chart for the 2009 GPI results:

There is also a detailed list of each countries rankings with a break down of how they achieved their standing here.

Something else that is very important when measuring peace is to examine each countries “drivers” of peace or important social and political matters that are being handled in a manner that keeps and sustains peace, these are:

1) Well functioning governments

2) Freedom of the press

3) Regional integration

4) Life expectancy

5) Participation in primary school

6) Women in parliament

Countries that have well sustained “drivers” have higher standing on the GPI scale.

The distinguished panel for the 2009 GPI made some very profound remarks about what needs to be done in terms of furthering a peaceful world such as, “All social issues can be solved with peaceful groundings, peace is quintessential to survival.”

Darfur, Sudan and the Global Peace Index

Sudan’s state of peace as measured by the GPI is at Very Low, reasons for this include their level of organized conflict, number of deaths and human rights violations. In order to become higher on the scale or to increase their standings of peace, Darfur as in all regions of the world that have conflict need to follow what the GPI scale describes as some of the best ways to keep and sustain peace which is having a strong economy, education and central government.

To learn more about the Global Peace Index visit their website.

Our names are Katherine McKerrow and Megan Maziar and we are recent graduates of The Galloway School in Atlanta, Georgia. This year we had the pleasure of co-chairing the Collective Soul Benefit Concert for Darfur. Not only did our event bring over 2,300 people together to learn about the crisis in Darfur, but also, with the help of many, we were able to donate an incredible $40,000! Planning the concert was not always an easy or flawless process, but we truly enjoyed every moment of the journey.

In 2006, our teacher Lexi Hunter Fields started a class called Facing History. A significant aspect of the curriculum is to raise awareness about issues that are not just affecting our small community, but also the world community. Throughout the year, we studied atrocious genocides such as The Holocaust, and the genocides that took place in Rwanda and Cambodia. We concluded the year by learning about the current conflict in Darfur, in which the government is murdering or displacing thousands of innocent civilians. As soon as our class began to understand exactly what was taking place in Darfur we knew that we had to take a stand. We decided that raising money for Darfur would go a long way, but raising awareness is what would truly make a difference. Then the idea of a benefit concert came up and it seemed like the perfect way to get both adults AND students involved in the Darfur cause.

So…in the spring of 2007, the first concert kicked off. It was held at The Roxy, a small theater in Atlanta and we raised a few thousand dollars. Local Atlanta bands served as the entertainment and people were able to sign petitions and watch an informational slide show about Darfur. The next year we put together the same type of concert and once again raised a few thousand dollars. Although we were thrilled with the success of the first two concerts, we just knew that The Concert for Darfur had more potential and it being our senior year we really wanted to blow it out of the water! Luckily, Katherine and her family ran into Ed Roland, lead singer of Collective Soul, at a Darfur event.

From there everything seemed to fall into place. Before we knew it we were sitting around a table with some of the most influential people in the Atlanta music scene talking about nothing other than DARFUR! Ed Roland agreed that he and Collective Soul would headline the event and that they would play a full ninety-minute set. Peter Conlan donated The Tabernacle, an amazing concert venue in downtown Atlanta, and Jeff Dauler, co-host and executive producer of Q-100’s “The Bert Show,” the hottest morning radio show in Atlanta, volunteered to be the evenings emcee. In addition to Collective Soul’s performance, we decided that the night would also feature three up-and-coming local bands, which would be judged and ultimately selected by Roland and Jeff Dauler.

Of course, we very quickly realized that in order to sell out a huge venue like The Tabernacle, we needed some help! So, we created the Darfur Student Board that was comprised of 20 students from 16 different metro Atlanta-area high schools. These students helped to raise awareness about Darfur in their individual schools and encouraged the students in their school to attend the concert. Finally, at 7:00 pm on March 27, 2009, The Collective Soul Benefit Concert for Darfur kicked off! Over 2,300 attendees signed post cards for Obama and sported Darfur t-shirts and wristbands while rocking out to some amazing music! Jerry Fowler, president of The Save Darfur Coalition, even recorded a special informational video for us that we showed on the big screens before Collective Soul came on.  The Galloway Save Darfur Corporation raised over $40,000 that night and educated hundreds of people in the Atlanta community. The Collective Soul Benefit Concert for Darfur was an experience that will not only endure in our hearts and minds, but also in those of the people who attended. Additionally, The Save Darfur Coalition awarded us with a trip to Washington, DC this week! We will have the opportunity to meet other students involved with Darfur advocacy and to lobby congress. What an incredible ride it has been!